When a chocolate and cocoa powder are processed from cacao nib or cacao mass, or cocoa powder, chocolate cake or cocoa butter prepared therefrom, or when chocolate confectionery, ganache, baked goods including cakes, bread or beverage containing cocoa powder or chocolate is produced therefrom, a foreign odor called stuffy smell or butter's smell generates and decreases a flavor characteristic to these processed products. A main causative substance of the above foreign odor is 2,3-butanedione (referring to Teranishi et al., “Flavor Chemistry: 30 years of progress”, pp. 147-153, published by Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publisher, New York, in 1999). It is known that 2,3-butanedione exhibits a strong foreign odor even at an extremely low concentration, and is one of the causative substance of deteriorating foods or beverages (referring to “Chemistry and Physiology of Flavor”, pp. 203-204, published by Kenpakusha Inc., in 1977).
While, Japanese Patent Publication Kokai No.123194/2001 discloses a method of inhibiting the formation of aldehydes as causative substances of a foreign odor generating during roasting and steaming by incorporating maltitol or trehalose in processed seed products such as cacao beans. α,α-Trehalose, saccharide derivatives of α,α-trehalose or saccharide compositions containing them disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication Kokai No.143876/95 and maltitol disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication Kokai No. 2439/85 can be used for imparting a sweetness and an improved taste into chocolates. However, the above literatures do not describe and suggest about any effective inhibition of the 2,3-butanedione formation as a causative substance for stuffy smell generating during process or preservation of processed cacao bean products for the purpose of producing satisfactorily flavorful processed cacao bean products.
The present invention has the first object to provide a method of inhibiting the 2,3-butanedione formation in order to produce a satisfactorily flavorful processed cacao bean products. The present invention has the second object to provide an agent for inhibiting the 2,3-butanedione formation, which is used for the method.